Increasing the number of children from rural areas and minority families in clinical research can improve the health of all children by allowing us to better understand disease and treatment in a wider variety of patients. Nebraska is home to over 470,000 children, 27% of whom reside in rural areas. Nebraska also includes a significant and growing minority pediatric population, over 30% of whom live in poverty. These children are often underrepresented in clinical trials. Thanks to the outreach offered by the pediatricians and pediatric specialists at the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) and the affiliated Children?s Hospital & Medical Center (Children?s), the proposed Nebraska Pediatric Clinical Trials Unit (NPCTU) is well suited to filling this gap in pediatric clinical trials by linking our well-established research infrastructure with our extensive clinical expertise and diverse patient population to create a central home for pediatric clinical research in Nebraska. Our clinical network includes over 30 outreach clinics throughout the state of Nebraska, as well as clinics in South Dakota and Iowa, and over 60 general pediatric and specialty pediatric clinics. The NPCTU partners this clinical network with the robust research infrastructure of UNMC and Children?s, including a Pediatric Research Office that supports more than 180 pediatric research trials and the UNMC Center for Clinical Trials Research. These entities have extensive experience in providing administrative and clinical support for the development of investigator-initiated studies and participation in multi-center, pharmaceutical and NIH/CDC/HRSA sponsored trials. Thus, the affiliation between UNMC and Children?s creates an environment with excellent pediatric research capabilities. This proposal has considerable institutional support and will integrate the extensive research and clinical resources available in Nebraska to build on current strengths to form a unified Nebraska Pediatric Clinical Trials Unit. In keeping with the goals of the Institutional Development Awards Program (IDeA) States Pediatric Clinical Trials Network, our Specific Aims as a participant in this program are two-fold: 1) To establish the NPCTU as the home for pediatric clinical trials in our region by developing a plan for communication with potential investigators and collaborators about trials, training opportunities and resources to support research. This proposal will also support the professional development of the principal investigator and associated faculty, residents and personnel conducting clinical research at UNMC and Children?s, while building on our existing program to conduct clinical trials research for children with a variety of conditions; and 2) To provide the underserved and rural populations of Nebraska and surrounding states access to state-of-the-art clinical trials. Our clinical outreach network with access to a wide variety of underserved populations uniquely positions the NPCTU to contribute to large-scale national pediatric trials.